


Sheltering

by So_Late_Into_the_Night



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: A bit sad, Gay, Havers might seem out of character but that is because we are seeing a side of him that he hides, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, LGBT, M/M, The Captain is Autistic (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain is Gay (Ghosts TV 2019), but turns out okay in the end, cap is autistic here, he’s also demisexual because I say so, i feel like I explored aspects of the Captain in this that I haven’t before and it was fun, mlm, not the focus but he is, queer, very gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Late_Into_the_Night/pseuds/So_Late_Into_the_Night
Summary: When the Captain took on a company of soldiers he did not anticipate having to deal with two of his men having an affair. He definitely didn’t anticipate having to deal with one of them being Lieutenant Havers, to whom he is so strangely drawn in a way he refuses to think about. But out of compassion for Havers, he agrees to keep their secret, although it’s eating away at him.·They get together in the end, I promise.
Relationships: Lieutenant Havers/Original Male Character(s), The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain finds a situation he doesn’t know how to approach.

The Captain was in the habit of doing a quick round of the corridor with his men’s rooms on it just before turning in himself. He mentally relayed who was in each room as he passed. Usually Lieutenant Lowell would be sharing with Lieutenant Grahams, but Grahams was home on leave, so Lowell, who was a Yorkshireman and quite nice really, would be alone in his room.

But apparently he wasn’t. The Captain froze as he registered the noise coming from Lowell’s bedroom: the creaking of a bedframe, and an insistent grunting sound. A distinctive combination. The Captain stopped and moved back until he was outside the door. He listened, wanting to be sure before making accusations. The groaning continued, as did the noise of the bed moving jerkily.

“ _Fuck_ , you’re even more beautiful naked than I imagined,” the Captain heard Lowell say breathlessly as the noises paused. His lover must have replied too quietly for the Captain to hear, because Lowell gave a low laugh and said, “Well, thanks, but I’m not a patch on you. Shall we get back to it? I’m just _desperate_ to finish inside you.”

The creaking and groaning resumed, newly augmented by the wet sound of kissing. The Captain felt himself blush. He had always found that he became annoyingly flustered at the merest mention of intimate relations.

How had Lowell even managed it? The Captain mulled it over. The girl must have snuck in somehow when his back was turned, but the window was hardly an option, given that they weren’t on the ground floor.

The Captain gathered all his resolve, faced away from the door, and opened it a bit. Lowell and his bedfellow stopped moving, suddenly silent and wary.

The Captain spoke, quietly. “Lowell, it’s the CO. I’m giving you and your _friend_ sixty seconds to get decent and then I’m coming in and turning the light on to talk to you both. Don’t bother trying to pretend that you’re alone. I know you aren’t.”

For five seconds, nobody moved. Then there was an awkward fumbling sound as Lowell and his lover separated, partly drowned out by Lowell rustling the bedcovers as loudly as he could and coughing. The Captain heard the sounds of two people creeping across a floor, grabbing pieces of clothing, and pulling them on. He was generous with his sixty seconds, but eventually he cleared his throat and said:

“Alright, I’m coming in.”

He turned around, entered, closed the door behind him, and turned the light on. Lowell looked such a mess — pyjama shirt barely done up, hands shaking from adrenaline, sweaty — that it took a good few seconds for the Captain to look at who Lowell had been with. He was partway through talking when he noticed.

“Lowell, I am frightfully disappointed in you. I expected better. I would have thought you would be responsible enough to…” he said, and trailed off when he saw the other person in the room.

Standing, quivering, in the corner was Lieutenant Havers. _His_ pyjama shirt was not done up at all, and his chest was heaving. His hair was messy and falling across his face, which was red. He was _panting_. Looking the Captain in the eye, he did not blink, and ran a hand through his hair.

“Ah,” said the Captain. “Good lord.”

For unfathomable reasons (although he had an odd sensation, niggling in the back of his brain, that they were wrong somehow), the Captain felt his body react to seeing Havers like that, only just dressed and caught in the middle of something. The Captain’s temperature rose, and his heart sped up. He felt faint. The familiar fuzzy feeling in his brain, always present when he was around Havers, returned, a thousand times stronger than ever before. Something was twisting painfully in his gut.

Havers’s panting began to slow down. He raised his eyebrows at the Captain briefly.

“Good lord,” the Captain said again. No harm; it encapsulated his entire train of thought at that moment.

“Sir, please. We can explain,” Lowell said.

“Can we?” Havers said. He looked towards the window, away from Lowell, and the Captain could see the deep red marks, quite a few of them, on Havers’s neck, and by his collarbone. His chest was lean, and he was slick with sweat and looked uncomfortable and ashamed.

“I would rather appreciate an explanation,” the Captain said. He had to concentrate hard on keeping his voice quiet. “I must say, gentlemen, when I took on this company of soldiers I had no idea I would have to deal with this.”

“Because you’re a bigoted bastard and like to pretend everyone who exists is exactly like your own narcissistic view of yourself,” Lowell spat. “I expected better of _you_. Sir.”

“Not sure that’s fair,” Havers whispered.

“Now, steady on, Lowell,” the Captain said.

“Steady…? Do you _hear_ yourself, sir?” Lowell spluttered. “You know what happens now? We get either chucked in prison or forced into hormonal therapy. If we were on the front they’d just shoot us. And you want me to steady on.”

“In fairness, you really didn’t pick the best location if you didn’t want to be caught.”

“So this is it then,” Lowell said resignedly. “I am to be kicked out of the army and punished by law for daring to love.”

“Love?” Havers gasped.

Lowell looked at him, and smiled softly.

“I like you very much. You know that.”

“Yeah, but I thought you just liked me for a shag,” Havers said. “Is there more to it?”

“I’m not sure yet. I think there might be,” Lowell said.

“You are under no obligation to be sure yet,” Havers told him. He stepped closer to Lowell and took his hand, then looked pleadingly at the Captain. “Don’t rat us out. Please, sir. We can stop.”

“I would rather not,” Lowell muttered.

The Captain barely heard what they were saying. He was confused and overwhelmed because his heart was hammering at the sight of two men holding hands, and he couldn’t figure out why because that would involve venturing into parts of his brain that he had never acknowledged, was scared to acknowledge because he knew all emotional hell would break loose inside him if he did, but he didn’t really know it because he’d never allowed himself to think about it.

Just like he’d never allowed himself to think about why he always felt drawn to Lieutenant Havers, wanted to spend every moment with him, felt on top of the world when Havers laughed at one of his jokes. He couldn’t think about it. It scared him too much.

But seeing Lowell and Havers together, and seeing them holding each other’s hands, and knowing what they’d been doing before he walked in… the Captain felt stressed. He didn’t want to address those emotions inside him. He would much rather not have any emotions, in fact, but especially not the ones that bubbled to the surface when he looked at Lowell’s hand in Havers’s.

“Sir?” Havers asked. His voice was soft.

“Yes,” the Captain said, zoning back in and shelving his identity crisis for another time. “Well, sit down. Both of you. On the bed. I’ll sit on the other bed, and you two are going to tell me about… this.”

He gestured between Havers and Lowell. They looked at each other and nodded, then sat down. The Captain sat on the other bed, facing them.

“I… I find,” he said slowly, “that I cannot decide what to do with you before knowing the full story. Or a fuller one than the one I currently know, at least. Tell me how this came about, please.”

“Yes, alright. I will,” said Havers. “I discovered I was a homosexual when I was seventeen, in college. Then this war happened, I signed up here, and I became vaguely aware that Lieutenant Lowell is a good-looking man. I made a few ambiguously flirtatious remarks, and he responded in kind, so I used those secret codes which homosexuals use. He in turn also used these. About a month ago we found a private space and a moment to ourselves and both admitted to our homosexuality.”

He shrugged. The Captain leaned back.

“Mm. Yes. And was it the confessions, then nothing, then… this now? I apologise for the intrusive questions, boys, I really do, but I must understand the situation.”

“No, I know, sir. No, it was not nothing for a month. We confessed to being queers, and then we kissed, about ten seconds later. And we have kept, well, meeting up to kiss, ever since.”

“It did _not_ sound like you were _kissing_ before I came in,” the Captain said drily.

“Lord, were we being awfully noisy?” Havers asked, his hand flying over his mouth in embarrassment. His cheeks coloured.

“Good lord, man! I… well, I…. Yes, you were.”

The Captain felt very bad. He was suddenly shy, after telling Havers that he had heard him in a compromising situation.

“Hmm.” Havers nodded.

“So what made tonight the night for… good lord… this?” the Captain asked. He felt his own face heating up, and was sure he must be at least five times as red as Havers, which was saying something.

Lowell spoke. “Well, the whole point of all of our meetings is for us both to blow off a bit of steam and get some much-needed intimate time with a man. And this evening at dinner I asked him if he fancied a bit of a shag, and when he said yes I invited him to my room after lights-out to roll around in the sheets for a bit.”

The Captain coughed at Lowell’s coarse language. He nodded.

“And, before this, all you did was kiss?” he asked.

“Well, not strictly speaking, no,” Havers said. “I mean, yes, but it got pretty hot and heavy a few times.”

“That is an understatement,” Lowell clarified. “It got _extremely_ hot and heavy, pretty much every time.”

“Which is your fault,” Havers said quietly, grinning and looking at the floor.

“Excuse me, one of us likes to have his wrists pinned to the wall above his head and it is not me,” Lowell retorted, also looking at the floor.

They were both leaning forward, forearms on legs.

“Yes, well, you can hardly claim to be indifferent to when I do this,” Havers answered, and leaned into Lowell, resting his lips against the other’s neck and sighing softly while running a hand up and down Lowell’s inner thigh.

“Not in front of the CO,” Lowell said through gritted teeth, releasing his grip on the back of Havers’s hair, which he had instinctively grabbed.

“Fine,” Havers huffed. He nipped the skin on Lowell’s neck with his teeth, then slumped back into his previous position.

“Gentlemen, I really want to keep you here. You are both very good soldiers.”

“Thank you, sir,” Havers said, his head low.

“Thank you,” Lowell echoed, when Havers nudged him.

“I want to protect you. I do. But I need your word that you will not do anything when you could be caught so easily as this. Find… find private places. Behind doors. Locked ones preferably. Keep the bally noise down, boys. Just for the love of god do not make it difficult for me to pretend I know nothing about this.”

“You won’t do anything about it?” Havers asked. His eyes, the colour of pine nuts, were wide and round and for once the Captain could bear eye contact for more than two seconds.

The Captain felt those unaddressed feelings multiplying with the knowledge that he was agreeing to keep Lieutenant Havers’s homosexual relationship secret, but he nodded.

“I have bigger and more important problems right now, and so does this country1. Just keep it out of my face, and the other men’s faces.”

Havers leapt off the bed and hugged the Captain, pulling him onto his feet and holding their bodies tight together. The Captain let his arms close around Havers, slow and scared. And then Havers was pulling back, of course he was, and his pine nut eyes were a little wet. He leaned forward and to the side, and gave the Captain a quick kiss on the cheek. The skin on that spot seemed to burn painfully. The Captain looked at his feet and cleared his throat.

“Thank you, sir,” Havers was saying. “This means the world to us.”

“It does,” Lowell said. He hugged the Captain, but the Captain felt unable to move to return the embrace properly, because he kept thinking of Havers.

“Yes, well,” said the Captain. It hurt to, but he smiled. “My job as a superior officer is to keep you safe, is it not?”

“Mm. I doubt Major Barry would think that that includes sheltering homosexuals,” Havers laughed. The Captain nodded, trying to smile.

Lowell sat back down, and Havers sat on his lap. They kissed.

“I’ll just go then, shall I?” the Captain mumbled. He felt something of a burden, an unwanted obstruction.

Havers pulled away from Lowell noisily, and allowed Lowell to suck on his neck while Havers spoke to the CO.

“Sorry, sir. Yes. I will sneak back to my own room soon.”

“Yes. Do.” The Captain nodded, his hands clasped behind his back. “I apologise for my inital shock and lack of kindness,” he added, bouncing on his heels.

“No need. Understandable,” Havers told him.

“Oh, Havers, you may want something to cover those marks up…” the Captain began.

“Not to worry,” Havers said, still winding his fingers tightly through Lowell’s hair. “I got some cosmetics from one of the women. Told her I had a bruise. It does the trick perfectly.”

“Goodnight then,” said the Captain. He bowed his head and left.

As he closed the door, he saw Lowell laying Havers on his back on the bed, taking his own place above Havers on all fours, and undoing the fastenings of Havers’s trousers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. He’s right. Compared to the surrounding eras, the War wasn’t a particularly dangerous time to be gay. The government had much bigger problems, so when they could turn a blind eye they mostly did. Of course, if you were really obvious about it, you would get prosecuted. And gay soldiers on the front were shot sometimes. But it was easier than before to have a secret gay relationship. The 1950s were when it got really bad, because the government were able to concentrate on the gays, and did. back


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A realisation.

The Captain got on with his duties for the next few weeks, but his mind was never really off what he’d seen. He knew it bothered him to see them like that, but when he thought about it he kept coming back around to the fact that he _couldn’t_ have a problem with it, because he’d agreed — no, _offered_ — to help them. In which case, its bothering him made no sense.

But it did bother him.

It bothered him constantly, all of it, but the image which flashed in his mind most frequently was that of Havers speaking casually to him while Lowell moaned into Havers’s neck, kissing and licking and biting him. As though Lowell’s doing those things to him was something he was utterly used to.

The Captain poured himself a small glass of whiskey and sat down in his office, but he was too restless to work through the paperwork he had been sent. He could make neither head nor tail of it, so he decided to get a cricket ball from where all the cricket equipment was kept in the gatehouse, and practice bowling it.

He changed, went down to the gatehouse, and opened the door. He was greeted by a _sight_.

Lowell and Havers were in there. Both were without their jackets. Havers’s hands were crossed at the wrists and Lowell was holding them against the wall above his head with his right hand as they kissed. Havers’s shoulders were flat to the wall and he was arching his back to bring his crotch forward. The palm of Lowell’s left hand was pressed to the (thankfully fastened) flies of Havers’s trousers. Havers was moaning loudly into Lowell’s mouth, his eyelashes fluttering and his cheeks red. His hair was a mess again, and his neck had another red mark on it, very new. The Captain watched, frozen in horror, as Havers wriggled a hand free of Lowell’s grip and undid the flies of his own trousers, before grabbing Lowell’s left hand at the wrist and shoving it down there. Havers squirmed and whined at Lowell’s touch as Lowell obliged his desires. He reached his hand around to grasp at Lowell’s backside. Shuddering and gasping, he pulled away from their kiss, his eyes still closed, to groan exquisitely, a low tone that resonated in the Captain’s ears and somehow brought out that strain of poshness that was always present in Havers’s voice. He kissed Lowell with fervour, mouths open. Lowell bit Havers’s lower lip gently and Havers let out a tiny yelp of surprise which morphed very quickly into another excited moan. He brought his hand back around from behind Lowell to tap the wrist of the hand that was down his trousers, encouraging him. Lowell must have improved what the hand was doing, because Havers started moaning, whimpering and whining in earnest: an odd sound, interspersed with squeals, which did not let up as Havers bucked his hips up, seemingly involuntarily, into Lowell’s touch.

The Captain came to his senses and closed the door silently. He stood outside and lit his pipe as he waited for them to finish so he could get his cricket ball. He continued to hear the sounds, the beautiful beautiful sounds, that Havers was making for Lowell.

Beautiful? The Captain gave a start. Where had _that_ thought come from?

But, before he had time to think it through, Havers gave a loud shout of pleasure, which seemed to incorporate a little swearing. The Captain stood facing the door, and a minute later both of the Lieutenants walked out, Havers still doing his trousers back up. They stopped sheepishly when they saw the Captain. Havers raised his eyebrows bemusedly as he did up the button at the top of his flies and then put his hands behind his back.

“Afternoon, sir,” he said.

“Enjoying ourselves, are we?” the Captain asked, then immediately felt embarrassed, sure he’d chosen the wrong words.

“Very much, thanks,” Havers said, smirking.

“Yes, sounded like it.”

“Lord, not again,” Havers replied.

“He is right,” Lowell put in. “You make a godawful amount of noise.”

“And you are the one giving me reason to,” Havers said.

“Sorry, remind me which of us actually suggested we go that far?” Lowell asked.

“I like it though,” Havers whispered, blushing.

“Good lord,” the Captain said. “Gentlemen, I am thoroughly disappointed in you. I _told_ you to be careful.”

“You’re not disappointed because of the…?” Lowell said, raising his eyebrows and miming.

“No! _God_ no! Not that I would… anyhow. I couldn’t care less what you do to each other. I mean, on that end of things. Do try not to hurt each other’s feelings, you know. But aside from that… it is his decision, of course.”

The Captain gestured shyly at Havers with a sweep of his hand.

“Where is everyone else?” Havers asked.

“Down at the Red Lion1, mostly. Possibly a few left at the House, but not really. What do you two plan to do now? Either of you fancy playing a spot of cricket?”

“To be honest, sir, if the others are at the pub then I plan on spending some more quality time with my beau,” Lowell said. He kissed Havers’s neck gently, and Havers scrunched his shoulders up, shy but smiling.

“Oh, you absolute tease,” Havers said. He turned his head and kissed Lowell.

Lowell sunk into it, pulling Havers close by his waist, and gave a low laugh as they both grinned into the kiss.

The Captain gulped. His heart was hammering.

“Lieutenants,” he said, a little louder than was strictly necessary. When they pulled away from each other and looked at him, he continued, at a normal volume. “Please try not to get caught. Please. Be sensible about it. Come on, a cricket store shed is not a sensible place for a… a sexual rendezvous. I really would rather not go through the long process of finding two new Lieutenants. You have the rest of the afternoon before the others come back, but, Havers, I need you in my office by sixteen hundred hours for a bit of actual work, so if you could tear yourself away from your Romeo then that would be wonderful. You have about two hours, I think. Goodbye.”

The Captain went to his office and sat down wearily. He generously topped up his glass of whiskey and drank some.

He was scared, scared out of his wits.

He was scared because he was feeling something he had never felt before. He kept unintentionally thinking of how Havers had grabbed a man’s hand by the wrist and desperately pushed it into his trousers. This in turn led to thinking about the sheer amount of evidence of Havers’s enjoying scandalous escapades with the male form. This led back to the hand and the trousers. And whenever he thought of it the Captain felt a certain feeling in his own trousers. A strange sharp taut feeling, which seemed to be always accompanied by an odd fuzziness of the head, and a certain clarity that kept replaying Havers, blushing with a man’s hand down his trousers, in the Captain’s mind. The Captain could feel the feeling, very strongly. He wanted something. God only knew what, but he wanted something, was desperately longing for it, was going mad without it.

But he was beginning to get an inkling that perhaps his desires were not all so innocent as he had previously presumed them to be.

The thought shocked and scared him, so he panicked and drank a lot of whiskey. It was no good to be feeling something in his crotch because of Havers having a man touch him! And why Havers? He drunkenly reflected. There were many reasons why Havers. For one, Havers had a lean chest and it looked quite pleasing. For another, Havers was funny. And sweet. And kind. With a nice voice. And he had got a man to touch him in a private place on his body. And had liked it, had moaned, whined, gasped and (finally) screamed, beautifully, as Lowell’s hand had moved in a distinctive way that managed to let the Captain know exactly what was going on while only actually showing him the hand and not… what was actually _in_ Havers’s trousers, as everything had been partially covered by the coarse cloth of the regulation slacks. The Captain suspected that those trousers had been opened for Lowell many times, and that Havers had ended most of those times gasping, blushing, sweating, and deliriously happy. And why _did_ men open their trousers for each other’s hands? What was wrong with a plain good old-fashioned naked romp in the sheets? Or, indeed, on the wooden floors of the gatehouse?

It would be good fun, really, mused his alcohol-addled brain, to watch Havers getting absolutely railed on the gatehouse floors.

The Captain kept drinking in the two hours before Lieutenant Havers was due to come to his office. Every time the effect began to wear off, and the rational section of his brain started to kick in and present some possible causes for the Captain being so affected by Havers liking having a man’s hand down his trousers, he drank a bit more. He was in a very sorry state by the time Havers, pristinely turned out once again, combed and ironed and smiling serenely in full service dress, actually arrived.

“Good lord, sir, what happened?” he asked, closing the door smartly behind him.

“Nothing. I am quite alright,” the Captain slurred. He could feel tears building up and ready to spill, but hadn’t cried in years and did not feel like breaking that streak.

Havers. God, Havers. So kind.

“With all due respect, sir, you are not alright.”

The Captain scowled and nodded, before sending Havers away.

The next day, the Captain was showing Major Barry around on his monthly visit. Major Barry was a tall man of about fifty five years, with greying hair and a moustache. He looked exactly as a Major ought to look, and always reminded the Captain of Major Blunt in Miss Christie’s _Murder of Roger Ackroyd_ , not least in the sense that his wife was far too young for him.

“And your men obey a strict code of honour?”

“Absolutely, sir,” the Captain said, twisting his hands together behind his back as he thought of Havers and Lowell.

“No unfortunate village girls left in the family way?”

“Not that I’m aware of, sir,” the Captain said, and added a little laugh, as he’d learnt to. “They go down to the village on their days off every now and then. Otto Beg-Chetwynde has invited the officers amongst us to his house for dinner a few times too.”

“Well, very good, officer. You seem to have everything in order.”

The Captain beamed and bounced a little on his feet. He was happiest when things were _in order_.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I shall bid you farewell. I think you’re capable.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The Captain stood ramrod straight and saluted. Major Barry nodded, hummed a small noise, and touched his cap. He walked off, and the Captain stayed still, upright and straight. He decided to walk back via the lake. It was beautiful, and occasionally brown trout or carp were visible. Before the war, the Captain had been fishing once or twice, and quite liked seeing fish.

But as he walked past the lake, he couldn’t miss the ripples coming from behind a large rock on the bank. Someone was swimming; presumably skinny-dipping, if they wanted to remain from his sight. He decided to leave whoever it was to it. Probably one of the Corporals, tackle-out as it were, with a local village girl in her slip. Ironic after what he’d just told the Major, but he knew the men would dislike him even more if he picked them up on that sort of thing.

Although… the last time he’d thought someone was with a village girl….

No.

He wouldn’t allow that thought to enter his head. Perhaps best to check, though.

“Who goes there?” he called out.

A head and some shoulders appeared over the top of the rock, forearms resting on the rock. It was Lowell.

“Oh, it’s you! Hello, sir.”

“Hello, Lieutenant. Are you supposed to be doing something?”

“Technically speaking, I’m supposed to be leading some of the soldiers in training exercises, but I left Gertie in charge of them. She’s fully capable, and I said I’d give her my egg ration.”

“Yes, fine. All alone in the lake?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Well, make sure nobody sees the pair of you.”

“It’s fine! All the other men are occupied in the training exercises I’m meant to be leading. We’re alright.”

“Enjoy yourselves.”

“Thank you!”

Lowell swam out towards the middle of the lake. He wasn’t wearing anything. Havers followed, also not wearing anything.

The Captain’s blood ran cold. His pulse thudded in his neck. He couldn’t see anything, only a vague blob of flesh colour that was a body, but it was enough. All the blood inside him ran straight to his head, then it all ran straight back down again. He stammered.

He went to his office and bolted the door, then assessed the situation logically, and reached the same conclusion.

It was a bad one.

Essentially, he was a homosexual, like Lowell. Like _Havers_.

It did explain a lot. It explained why he’d never been able to speak immediately after watching a rugby match at school. It definitely explained why he had a hard time speaking to the strong boys in the changing rooms at school. And, most of all, it explained why he always felt so light-headed around Havers and why he’d been upset at discovering Havers was an item with Lowell.

But it was bad. It could lose him his job, potentially end him in prison.

The Captain started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So many period drama pubs are called this. back


End file.
